Scooter 
So my local Board of Elections was kind enough to send me a postcard informing me that there were no non-partisan elections coming up next month for the primary, and therefore I wouldn't need to come to the polls, as I can't vote in them.
In other words, I'm in a closed primary state, where only the Democrats vote for their ilk, the Fasc^H^H^H^HRepublicans vote for theirs, and the winners of each go on to meet each other in the General in November. In other words, the playoffs, but for politics.
Which is how it should be, really, if parties are to mean anything. Of course, I do not vote like seemingly everyone else around me votes - they treat it like it's Survivor, apparently - so several states have, to my feelings, weirder ways of doing it. As an example, I think California has something called the "jungle primary" where literally everyone gets on the same ballot and they take the top two for a runoff, which is so mindbogglingly stupid that the person responsible should be beaten with a stick.
Of course, I also know about election methods, and wish that we could have Mixed Member Proportional for the legislature and maybe a Condorcet for single member seats (I'd accept AV or STV), but I'm in such a vanishingly small minority in that respect - as I discovered during my political career - that I soon realized that staying quiet about things was for the best. (I'm certainly not going to join up with the Republican or Democratic Parties for what should be obvious reasons.)
Side note: There's also Delegative, or "Liquid" Democracy, which I really find innovative, and we have the technology to pull it off, but again, we'd need to come to some sort of understanding about what #democracy is actually designed to do, and considering we're still having the "debate" about the Electoral Fucking College, I have no illusions of anything guided by a modicum of reason penetrating into the public consciousness in the foreseeable future.
#uspol #USElections #PrimaryElections #VotingMethods #cynicism #blathering #OldManYellsAtCloud
In other words, I'm in a closed primary state, where only the Democrats vote for their ilk, the Fasc^H^H^H^HRepublicans vote for theirs, and the winners of each go on to meet each other in the General in November. In other words, the playoffs, but for politics.
Which is how it should be, really, if parties are to mean anything. Of course, I do not vote like seemingly everyone else around me votes - they treat it like it's Survivor, apparently - so several states have, to my feelings, weirder ways of doing it. As an example, I think California has something called the "jungle primary" where literally everyone gets on the same ballot and they take the top two for a runoff, which is so mindbogglingly stupid that the person responsible should be beaten with a stick.
Of course, I also know about election methods, and wish that we could have Mixed Member Proportional for the legislature and maybe a Condorcet for single member seats (I'd accept AV or STV), but I'm in such a vanishingly small minority in that respect - as I discovered during my political career - that I soon realized that staying quiet about things was for the best. (I'm certainly not going to join up with the Republican or Democratic Parties for what should be obvious reasons.)
Side note: There's also Delegative, or "Liquid" Democracy, which I really find innovative, and we have the technology to pull it off, but again, we'd need to come to some sort of understanding about what #democracy is actually designed to do, and considering we're still having the "debate" about the Electoral Fucking College, I have no illusions of anything guided by a modicum of reason penetrating into the public consciousness in the foreseeable future.
#uspol #USElections #PrimaryElections #VotingMethods #cynicism #blathering #OldManYellsAtCloud
Quinn McHugh 🔶 ⿻ (he/him)
David Ruffner
U.S. Politics in Real Time
Dennis Alexis Valin Dittrich
Aaron
Aaron In Minnesota